DECOLONIAL BY DESIGN
An expansive online programme for brand, comms and culture-makers who want to create with intention, shape new worlds and lead with authenticity.
UNLOCK NEW DEPTHS TO YOUR IMPACT
By using your work to share messages that the world needs to hear.
If you’re a strategist, researcher, storyteller or marketer - are you aware of the incredible opportunity, power and responsibility you hold in this space and time?
You’re being called on to show up with more intentionality and play your part as a shaper of worlds. But with so much focus on unwritten rules regarding what's 'sayable' or not, our sense of creativity and authenticity can start to feel blocked. Which ironically prevents us from tapping into the power to make meaningful change.
With this in mind, our guidance around language, is an offering. One that empowers rather than stifles. Guidance rooted in traceable wisdom - and not simply attached to the ever-changing whims of our current social climate.
In doing so, Decolonial by Design supports you, your organisation (and your clients) to unlock the restorative messages that you are uniquely positioned to share. It's about expanding your capacity for authentic creative expression, rather than stifling its potential.
Keep reading to find out how.
FIRST UP,
What do we mean by decolonial?
Decoloniality is the ongoing practice of identifying, disrupting, and healing the ways colonial logic shapes how we think, create, value, and communicate.
Decoloniality is not the same as decolonisation (the material process involving the return of land, reparations, and the redistribution of resources). Decoloniality supports decolonisation by shifting the cultural, symbolic, and communicative systems that allow material change to take root and endure.
The way we frame and communicate our work is a powerful vehicle for this shift.
Commercial branding in the West developed alongside empire, used to justify exploitation and reinforce racist and sexist hierarchies… shaping which ideas, people, and places are seen as valuable, or not. Those logics didn’t disappear; they remain embedded in how value, credibility, and desire are constructed today.
This programme supports you to apply a decolonial lens to the design, framing, and communication of your work, so you can disrupt colonial narratives rather than unknowingly reproduce them.
It invites you to step into your narrative power with care and responsibility: to contribute to the healing of historic harm, restore balance, and identify the conversations your work is uniquely placed to spark, amplify, or disrupt.
Watch this short video
on the colonial history of branding for an idea of where this work is coming from.
You should read this article too.
Symbolic violence refers to the subtle, often unconscious ways that media, systems and institutions perpetuate and reinforce inequalities and power imbalances through symbols, language and cultural norms.
DBD unpacks the way that Symbolic Violence acts upon various froups, ideas and identities - from left-handedness, to neurodivergence and nature.
Crucially, DBD teaches semiotic insight and symbolic literacy to support you to contribute to healing the harms of symbolic violence through the way you assign meaning to your work.
DBD teaches
Symbolic Literacy,
to heal the harms of
Symbolic Violence.
DBD focuses on the core components that lay the foundation for the coloniality of systemic racism and other forms of oppression.
It’s about providing a lens that helps you to recognise and disrupt them at their root.
I believe that folks doing work like yours
hold the raw influence needed to
meaningfully disrupt the status-quo.
So if you're:
• struggling to communicate with depth and integrity in a world where meaning is often shallow or co-opted
• hesitating in a hyper-critical, scrutinising world
• ready to champion voices, narratives, and ways of knowing that have been pushed to the margins
• hungry for insights that challenge your perspective and amplify your creative authority
• seeking a programme that grounds you in decolonial thinking while giving you the tools to reframe, disrupt, and lead through your work
This course is designed for you.
What’s included?
A carefully crafted curriculum, designed to shorten the distance between theory and practice.
The course is intentionally kept under three hours long, with bitesize lessons, in order to make the content digestible and easy to apply.
Here’s what’s inside ↓
Inside you’ll find:
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These video lessons are fused with academic insight designed to be immediately applicable to your work.
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Flexible, expert advice when you need it. Book hourly support across a range of topics—from planning to problem-solving. This focused consultation will help clarify your goals, map out next steps, and identify opportunities for growth.
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Providing key theory to drive creativity and idea generation
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The Decolonial Discourse Deck is a powerful companion for your work. As the basis of the framework it asks you the kind of questions that I’d be asking if I was critiquing my work or yours. So when you purchase the course you’ll get a access to the questions included in the physical deck.
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To help apply the framework to a real aspect of your work - whether that’s messaging, narrative framing, or a current project.
Ready to start?
INVESTMENT
£325
£225
Until Tuesday 14th January 2026, Decolonial by Design will open “New Wave” seats for £225.
The “New Wave”
Over the past few years since launching this programme, the diversity among folks who’ve engaged with this work has spanned far beyond my original scope of “experienced professionals working traditionally within branding, marketing and advertising”.
Founders, artists, academics, non-profit leaders and adland creatives have all found value in this work. And I want to honor this growing diversity, not by making this bigger, but by creating more focused iterations, designed to speak to the subtle differences between these varying professional contexts.
To mark and support this shift, these “New Wave” seats will:
- offer lifetime access to the current three hour course (and any future iterations for your line of work)
– a live implementation session with me, focused on applying the course theory to an existing challenge or aspect of your work
– a chance to shape the next phase of the course for your field
This wave is specifically for folks working alone or in small teams. Where ideas can move from theory to practice with less friction.
Ideal for artists, academics, freelance strategists, storytellers, narrative change practitioners or founders.
If this is you, secure your space below.
Hey, I’m Najité Phoenix — course creator & curriculum designer
I’ve always been fascinated by how words shape the world. From poetry and songwriting to storytelling for impact, I’ve spent my life observing and experimenting with how communication moves culture.
After a decade facilitating workshops, consulting for heritage and corporate organisations, and exploring my own creative practice, I stepped back to study the work I’d been doing - to understand it, deepen it, and amplify its impact.
That led me to a Master’s in Brands, Communication, and Culture, where I carved out a lively cross-disciplinary path across race, empire, and nation; rites and ritual; branding, promotional culture; audiovisual politics; threads less often brought together in one place.
From that dot-connecting journey emerged a distinct set of frameworks and insights that had been patiently waiting to be given form. These became the foundation of Decolonial by Design.
This programme distills that learning into practical tools: drawing on scholars like Hall, Fanon, and Hooks, paired with timeless Indigenous concepts and the rawness of artistic experimentation. It’s designed for people like you, who give a damn, helping you to communicate with intention, expand the impact of your work, and pass on the restorative dimensions of this work through the DNA of your projects and framing.
Decolonial by Design is where theory and practice meet. Where we're reminded that the impact of theory is bought to life through practice, and the impact of practice needs the wisdom of thinkers.
*This* is where grounded impact takes root.
What People Are Saying
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The Decolonial by Design course was absolutely fantastic. It covered so much, delving into complex issues - presented clearly with great visuals. It's such an extensive piece of work that I think should be utilised by advertising, branding and comms teams everywhere. I 100% recommend.
— Samantha Kuderna-Reeves, Good Stuff Partners
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The DBD course is incredibly informative, engaging, easy to follow and reinforces why I want to decolonize the way I brand myself and market my services. I definitely recommend this course to anyone looking to decolonize the way they approach branding and marketing.
— Brooke Smolley, Copywriter and Coach
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The Decolonial by Design framework is brilliant. I love how the provocations ask critical/complex questions in a clear and consice way. It's really helped me to reflect on the work that I do with NGOs. I think it's crucial for all organisations and marcomms professionals out there.
— Laura Tufis, The Marketing Pallette
NOW HERE'S THE THING
Decoloniality is a deeply personal long-term journey.
(And applying it to the work we do is an ongoing commitment)
But it doesn’t take years to learn how to begin.
The tools and frameworks within the programme are designed to support you to start applying decolonial lensing within your work from today.
Ready to do more with your work in the world?